Bitcoin investment products in the United States have experienced a surge in weekly inflows, with a record $2.9 billion in new assets added. According to a report by CoinShares, a digital asset investment company, a total of $13.2 billion in new capital has flowed into investment products, including spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), since the beginning of the year. Currently, $74.61 billion worth of Bitcoin is under custody. Bitcoin products accounted for 97% of the total inflows. CoinShares analyst James Butterfill stated, “Digital asset investment products saw record weekly inflows totaling $2.9 billion, surpassing the previous week’s all-time record of $2.7 billion.”
Interestingly, investors have not shown the same level of interest in Ether (ETH) and other altcoin investment products, with their combined inflows this year being significantly lower compared to Bitcoin. Despite the record inflow into ETFs, the price of Bitcoin has dropped by 7% in the past week and currently trades at $67,418.
Outside of the United States, there have been record outflows from crypto exchange products. Investors have withdrawn $738 million from Bitcoin exchange-traded products on German, Canadian, and Swedish exchanges and have, to some extent, shifted their investments to U.S. counterparts. This may be due to the fact that U.S. Bitcoin ETFs charge as little as 0% on a portion of their inflows, in contrast to management fees of over 1% per annum. Since receiving approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission in January, U.S. Bitcoin ETFs have captured more than 80% of the spot Bitcoin ETF market share.
The popularity of Bitcoin ETFs has prompted regulators such as the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) to relax their stance on such products. On March 11, the FCA announced that it would not object to requests to create a U.K. listed market segment for cryptoasset-backed Exchange Traded Notes. Similarly, the SFC received its first spot Bitcoin ETF application on January 29.
Related: Despite inquiries, Vanguard’s outgoing CEO remains opposed to Bitcoin ETFs.